Reader Response Criticism

As the title suggests reader-response criticism focuses on reader's responses to the literary texts. This theory believes that the meaning of the text depends on. the readers. The text does not come into existence until the readers have read it. When the readers read the text, it becomes a real text. This theory believes that the meaning of the text depends on the readers. The text does not come into existence until the readers have read it. When the readers read the text, it becomes a real text. In the same way, readers are free to interpret the text in any way they like. They can form the meaning of their own. So, this theory believes that the meaning of the text is not fixed because the different readers will find different meanings in the same text. They are also free to use any other literary theory to interpret it. But most of the reader-response critics use their own style of interpretation which is unique in itself. Reader-response criticism became Catchier in 1970s. It believed that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from the texts' interpretation. It means that the readers have great role for the existence of the literature. This is one of the two great values of this theory. Second, it believes that the readers are not passive in reading the text. It suggests that readers actively make meaning. The meaning depends on the readers. In fact the same reader will also find different meanings from the same text because of the different life experiences. The knowledge we get through life makes difference in the understanding of a text. If we read a text now, we make some sense but if we read the same text after twenty years, we will find different sense. Our personal experiences and change in thinking make the reading different other texts. They try to show the evidence that how the text shows the meaning. This is the best interpretation.

 
New criticism gives the best interpretation for the short poems and stories because the shorter the text, the more of its formal elements are analyzed. But in the longer texts, the detail analysis of the formal elements is impossible. In that case, only few elements are analyses. They analyses imagery, the role of narrator, function of setting, pattern of light and dark and few other elements. The analysis of every word is not possible for the longer texts. So, new critical analysis is more effective for the shorter texts. Anyway, the whole process is devoted to find them embedded in the text. New criticism believes that it is the only method ‘to interpret the text, according to its formal elements. It is purely literary criticism. Therefore, it is the single best interpretation.